


Obviously

by ginger_mosaic



Series: The Guinea Pig 'Verse [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Moondoor (Supernatural), POV Claire Novak, Post-Season/Series 10, Unconventional Families, irresponsible Scott Pilgrim references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 22:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12156423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger_mosaic/pseuds/ginger_mosaic
Summary: In which Dean is a jerk, Castiel is an idiot, and only Claire can fix it. How she got saddled with two emotionally-stunted, absolute dorks for foster dads, she will never understand.





	Obviously

**Author's Note:**

> Happy (belated) Destiel Day!
> 
> This is meant to be the last installment of this series. Thank you for reading!

“Cas, I love you, but you’re a fuckin' dope.”

Claire freezes in the hallway outside of Dean’s room, and for a moment and a half, she doesn’t even know what seemed so shocking about that, but then she repeats it in her head in Dean’s voice and _holy shit_.

Inside the room, Cas is silent, as though he is too stunned to speak, too, but then the low rumble of his voice rolls into the hallway through the open door.

“You don’t have to be mean, Dean.”

Claire releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding as Dean chuckles, and then when he says, “C’mere, you,” she takes it as her cue to keep walking and get the hell out of that hallway.

Sam is in the front hall, dropping canvas bags of snacks at the foot of the stairs, when Claire gets there.

“Hey, Claire,” he says, smiling. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” She’s all packed and they dropped off Jean Luc at Molly’s house the day before. She drops her duffle on the floor next to the canvas bags and Sam’s leather travel bag, shrugging out of the strap, and when she looks up, Sam is frowning at her.

“Something wrong?” he asks.

Claire stares at him for a second and then shrugs and shakes her head. “No.”

Sam raises his eyebrows, and Claire brushes past him toward the kitchen. He takes this as an invitation to follow her, apparently. She occupies herself by digging through the fridge for a soda, but all they’ve got is Red Bull and some weird lemon soda from Mexico that Cas ordered a case of two weeks ago. She snags a Red Bull, because she’ll probably need it anyway, and when she turns back around, Sam is still wearing his concerned face. She would hate him for it, because she hates when people look at her like that, but right now, she feels genuinely disturbed, so maybe it’s okay.

“Claire,” he says.

She sighs long-sufferingly. “It’s nothing,” she says. “Dean and Cas were being gross.”

Sam wrinkles his nose. “Did you walk in on them making out?”

Claire scoffs. “That’s just you. _I_ know how to knock.” Sam makes one of what Dean calls his Bitch Faces. “Seriously, you’ve lived with him forever. You should know better.”

And he really would, wouldn’t he? Sam probably knows almost everything about Dean. Maybe he would know if Claire is overreacting. Maybe this is a completely normal thing, and Claire has just never been witness to it before.

“So I can’t walk into the _library_ without _knocking_?” Sam complains. “Man, the library is supposed to be my safe place.”

“I’m pretty sure Dean has a big brains kink,” says Claire, because it’s something Charlie mentioned once and it makes Sam make another face (hilarious; at least she won’t be alone in her misery). “You might have to find another safe place.”

Sam grunts. “Dean hates doing dishes. Can the kitchen be my safe place?”

“Food is in the kitchen,” Claire reminds him, and he groans. She bites her lip, debating for a few seconds of Sam’s distracted grumbling before she blurts out, “Dean used the L-word.”

Sam stops grumbling and stares at her blankly for a moment before frowning in confusion. “…Lesbian?”

“No, _Scott_ ,” Claire huffs, rolling her eyes. “The capital-L L-word.”

Sam’s eyes widen and a look of awed surprise slowly dawns on his face, his eyebrows raised and his mouth falling open. Then he closes it and bobs his head. “Huh,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“To Cas?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” he says again. “Wow.”

He leans against the doorway, staring thoughtfully into the middle distance, and Claire tries not to fidget while she waits.

She’s _never_ heard Dean say he loves _anything_. Even with burgers, it’s “This burger is awesome” and “I could eat this burger for the rest of my life” and “I need another one. Now.” Even his _car_. He’s never outright said “I love my car,” it’s always “Don’t touch her” and “Hey, Baby, I’ll take care of you” and “That car is precious to me and I swear to God, Sam, if you scratched her, I won’t be held responsible for what I do to you.” Sometimes it seems like he purposefully chooses his words to avoid saying “love,” like the very word makes him uncomfortable. She’s heard Sam say it, so she knows it’s just a Dean thing. She’s even heard Cas say it, she thinks, but now she can’t remember, and she wonders if maybe Cas has never actually said it either. Maybe he’s just used it in reference to other people (“But why would Sansa love Joffrey? He clearly doesn’t value her company, nor does he show her any respect”). Cas never talks much about what he likes anyway. Getting him gifts is like pulling teeth. Dean is easier; he never shuts up about things he likes, whether it’s Batman or _Caddy Shack_ or that goddamn burger he had in Louisiana a month and a half ago.

“But we already knew that, didn’t we?” says Sam at last.

“Huh?”

Sam gestures vaguely. “That he feels that way about Cas.”

“Well, yeah.” Obviously. “But he never says it,” she insists, a little uncertainly now. Was she wrong?

Sam grimaces. “No, not really.” He pauses, thinking. “What exactly did he say?”

She thinks back, but she’s not sure she remembers the exact words. “I dunno. He was teasing Cas about something.”

“How did he say it?” Sam presses, leaning forward now.

“Fondly? I dunno!”

Sam leans back again. “Huh. Well. That’s…” He shakes his head. “Don’t say anything about it,” he warns her seriously.

Like she was gonna. She nods and finally takes a sip of the Red Bull. It’s going to be a weird weekend; she can already tell.

 

* * *

 

The drive to Farmington Hills always takes _forever_ anyway, but this time just feels painfully awkward. Dean and Cas aren’t talking, and Claire’s Kindle ran out of battery three hours ago, and she is loath to use her phone, for fear it will run out of battery, too. If Dean would just suck it up and put in more auxiliary outlets in the Impala, she could text Molly and Justin about how dumb and boring family trips are. She told them she was going camping in Michigan, because if she told them that it was actually for LARPing, she would never live it down. Worse, they might get excited about it, the drama geeks.

The last time she texted them was two hours ago, when she sent a gripe about Sam’s giant sleeping moose body taking up the entire back seat.

 _i hate everyone in this car_ , she added.

 _take a pic of the dads_ , Molly sent back into the group text.

 _didnt claire say they were being gross_ , said Justin.

 _cas is feeding dean beef jerky_ , Claire told them, and she snapped a photo of them in the act and sent it along. Maybe Dean and Cas weren’t talking, but apparently whatever they weren’t talking about wasn’t enough to stand in the way of Dean’s constant need to snack.

 _gross_ , Molly agreed.

 _oh thank god_ , said Justin. _i thought u meant he was chewing it up for him like a coupla birds_.

And Claire had burst out laughing, startling Sam awake, and then she’d quickly sent _gtg, take good care of jean luc_ , and shut off her phone, but not before she caught Molly’s text of _love birds maybe_.

So her phone has been off for two hours when Dean pulls into Des Moines.

“We stopping?” asks Sam.

“Bathroom break,” Dean grunts, and thank _God_ , Claire needs to go, too. Even so, she waits until the others are out of the car at the gas station, lunging for the auxiliary cord plugged into the cigarette lighter to claim the phone charger. (She figures her Kindle is a lost cause and maybe Cas will agree to buy her a magazine in the station’s convenience store.)

Sam fills the tank and pulls out his tablet to FaceTime Eileen, and Claire wanders over to the store to look for the restrooms.

“Claire,” Cas calls from the corner, and when she turns, he waves her over. “There is only one restroom,” he tells her, gesturing to the single door around the corner with the unisex bathroom plaque on it.

“Ugh,” she groans. “And you let Dean go first? What if I had _lady problems_?”

“At least it’s not Sam,” says Cas, and yeah, that would be unpleasant. Then Cas gives her a serious look. “Are you menstruating?”

“No.”

He nods. “Then you have no cause for complaint.”

“Can I get a magazine?” she asks, and when he tilts his head curiously, she explains. “My Kindle died, and I’m not gonna spend the whole ride watching you and Dean make googly eyes at each other.”

The bathroom door opens abruptly, and Dean glares at Claire.

“We don’t make googly eyes,” he snaps.

“I have photographic evidence,” she says, pushing past Cas to the restroom. “Don’t test me, Winchester.” He takes a swipe at her as she passes him, but she ducks under his arm and quickly locks the door behind her.

“Dude, she just cut you in line,” says Dean, voice slightly muffled by the door.

“Female humans have smaller bladders than males, and given Claire’s size and her intake of energy drinks and water today, I’m inclined to believe her need is currently greater than mine.” A pause. “I can wait.”

“You spoil her, man.”

“If you’re going into the store, please select a magazine for her.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll get her one about muscle cars.”

Dean’s a fucking jerk.

When she comes back out, Cas is still waiting outside. Claire holds the door for him and then starts around the corner to go into the store. She can see Dean in one of the snack aisles, so she ducks next to the ice cream to hide from him. She watches him in the security mirrors on the ceiling as he rifles through the chips indecisively. She knows better than to actually sneak up on him, but sometimes she likes to see how long it will take him to notice her. It’ll be better this weekend when he’s unarmed for sure, except for the fake wood and foam swords, because Charlie banned real weapons from Moondoor (apparently after a fiasco in which Dean _literally discharged a gun into the ground_ ). Dean had kicked up a fuss until she allowed for hex bags and holy oil, and they carried salt and holy water on them constantly anyway. For now, she’ll just practice her stealth and spying skills.

“Do you need help?”

Claire jumps at the whisper and turns to see a woman with blonde hair tied up in a ponytail crouching next to her.

“What?” Claire says.

The woman glances up at the mirror. “That man,” she whispers. “And the two others you drove up with. Are they…”

The woman’s concerned stare is like Castiel’s; it makes Claire feel like her skin isn’t hers, like she’s someone else and the woman is trying to see through her. The implication of the woman’s concern and side glances toward Dean hit Claire all at once, and she stands up abruptly.

“He’s my dad,” she blurts, maybe too frantically because the woman’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh,” she says, still frowning.

Claire glances at the back of Dean’s head over the aisles and then back at the woman, who is still watching her warily.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, and she hurries around the aisles to where Dean is still deliberating over chips. He’s holding a basket already filled with water bottles, fruit pies, and sandwiches, and when she approaches him, as conspicuously as possible, he looks up and smiles.

“Hey,” he says. “What kind of chips you want?”

Claire glances at the rack of chips and grabs a family-sized bag and tosses it into his basket.

“SunChips, Dean,” she says. “Always SunChips.”

Dean glances down at the bag and shrugs. “Right. You want ice cream?”

Claire can feel the woman’s eyes on them. God, he might as well have offered her candy. “No,” she says, and then, impatiently: “Can we just go?”

Dean frowns at her, and she rolls her eyes and turns toward the register counter. She hears Dean follow her, grumbling under his breath, “What kind of kid doesn’t want ice cream?”

Claire stands next to Dean while he pays and tries not to glance around at the woman, but she doesn’t know what looks more suspicious. She remembers being unsure how to act around Randy like this, and she hates it. She hates that she still doesn’t know how to have a family; she hates not knowing what to do with herself around them.

Dean takes way too long to pay and buys some scratchers, and when he checks out the cigarettes behind the counter, she catches his eye, and he guiltily clears his throat.

“You wanna wait by the car?” he asks.

She gives him a Look. “No.”

He grimaces but takes it in stride. Dean only smokes when he has to drive and can’t drink, when he’s freaking out about something and thinks he needs it, which is somehow not all that often. Sam says Dean never smoked very much; they never really had the money to feed that habit (on top of all the other ones).

The cashier finally finishes counting out Dean’s change, and Dean hands Claire one of the bags. She turns and pushes through the store door, knowing Dean will follow her closely, because he’s a hover-parent like that.

“All right, what the hell was that about?” asks Dean, taking a few long steps until he’s walking evenly with her.

“I think that woman thought you guys were kidnapping me,” she says.

Dean is smart enough not to miss a step and look back. “Shit. Really?” He thinks for a moment. “I guess it’s kinda weird. Three guys and a teenaged girl.” He looks awkward now, and Claire feels bad.

“Well, two and a half,” she says, “with Sam’s hair all…” She gestures to her own hair.

Dean looks at her in surprise, and then, slowly, grins, and he’s looking at her with something like pride and fondness so suddenly intense that she feels herself blush.

“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “How could she make that mistake?”

Claire grins back, and when they reach the car where Sam and Cas are waiting for them, now across the lot parked in a space, Dean is still chuckling.

“I’ll drive,” says Sam, and Dean makes a face, so he adds, “You and Cas take the back. You need a nap before meeting up with Charlie.”

Dean shrugs at last and tosses Sam the keys. “We’ll switch in Davenport, though,” he says, and Sam nods and they all get back into the car.

 

* * *

 

Dean didn’t just get Claire a _People_ and a _Newsweek_ , he also got her a romance novel, apparently, which she didn’t expect to like. It’s somewhat addicting from the start, and Claire wonders if it hurt him to throw it on the counter with all the snacks or if he decided he didn’t care what the cashier thought about his purchases. Sam plays some alternative rock that Dean complains about until he falls asleep in the back seat with his head in Cas’s lap, Claire reads her book, and Cas does a book of Sudoku puzzles. Claire’s phone is almost charged when they get to Davenport, and then Dean swaps it out for his phone and takes the wheel (and control of the music) again, but he lets Claire sit up front with him, which is good because reading has sort of made her nauseous.

Dean hangs his arm out the window, occasionally lifting his hand to let it surf the wind, which is only made stronger because, as always, he’s driving too fast. It’s a wonder he doesn’t get pulled over more often. Lucky, too, considering all the fake IDs and weapons and possibly-kidnapped teenager.

Claire tries to text Molly and Justin again, and then Alex when they don’t respond, but apparently everyone else has better things to do than sit in a car and read a romance novel, which has lost some of its appeal. The heroine and her high-born lover are fighting about something political that Claire doesn’t quite get, and she just wants them to get over it already, so she sets it aside for until her stomach settles. She listens to Dean’s old people music and wonders if she could get away with putting in the Taylor Swift tape Cas made him for his birthday (Dean had blushed and stammered out protests, but then he and Cas had disappeared for a few hours and Claire caught him humming “Wildest Dreams” in the kitchen one night, so). Every once in a while, she calls out state names when she sees a new license plate, but Sam is the only one who will play Yellow Car with her.

The ride goes downhill a little around four o’clock, when they hit traffic outside of Tinley Park. Dean goes from 95 miles an hour to 35 in only a few miles, and he starts to curse Chicago under his breath.

“Oh, come on!” he shouts, when the collective speed of the traffic drops down to 20. Dean’s road rage in traffic is almost as scary as Dean with a certain unspoken of mark, so Claire quickly scrambles for a way to distract him.

“Let’s play a game,” she says.

Sam groans. “Claire, trust me. We’ve played every car game known to man. It doesn’t help.”

“Well, time to learn the car games known to women,” she says. She explains _Fortunately, Unfortunately_ to them, because it’s one of the games they play as a warm-up for drama club, and apparently they’ve never played that one before, so she’s going to call it a win.

“I’ll start,” she says. “Fortunately, we bought snacks at our last stop.”

“Unfortunately,” says Sam behind her, “we forgot the protein bars.”

Cas thinks for a moment. “Fortunately, we bought cheese sticks and jerky.”

“Unfortunately, cheese makes Sam gassy,” Dean puts in right away, and Claire laughs. Sam kicks the front bench, and Dean scolds him, but he’s grinning.

Claire declares Dean the winner of that round, and he starts the next one. They go around a few times, but when it reaches Cas again, he doesn’t continue the story right away. He’s been pretty slow at participating, and doing crosswords at the same time probably doesn’t help, so they wait, but after a minute, he still hasn’t continued from Sam’s “Fortunately, the bears were too busy with the honey to notice us.”

“Cas, you listening?” asks Dean.

“I’m thinking,” says Castiel, staring out the window, his crossword book in his lap.

“Well you gotta say something,” Dean snaps. “It’s a game, man. Don’t leave us hanging.”

Dean’s sudden irritation is confusing until realization hits Claire like a bolt of lightning, and then she feels anger boiling up inside her, too. Suddenly, she _hates_ Castiel. She wants to shake him and scream at him.

He didn’t say it back.

Castiel is a fucking idiot.

Was it the first time? It sort of sounded like it just slipped out. They’ve been together for almost a year—at least officially, since they act like they’ve been together for _years_ and they’re all fake-married for Claire’s sake—but they’re also both stubborn enough and emotionally stunted to have never said it before. Even though Sam’s right, and everyone knows they love each other.

Still, knowing it and actually saying it are two completely different things.

Cas is quiet for a few seconds longer, perhaps stunned by Dean’s sudden harshness, and then he finally speaks.

“Unfortunately, I stepped in the honey.”

The car in front of them starts forward and doesn’t apply the brakes, and Dean speeds up.

“Ugh, finally,” he groans. “Fortunately, the bears don’t care. Claire, text Charlie and tell her we’ll be there around eight.”

She picks up Dean’s phone from where it’s resting on the seat between them, still plugged into the adapter. “Unfortunately, now Cas’s shoe is sticky,” she says, but the game sort of peters out now that Dean is more focused on driving. They do a few more rounds, but it doesn’t seem like their hearts are in it anymore, and Sam finally calls it, declaring Claire the winner when she says, “Fortunately, aliens abduct me so I don’t have to deal with you guys anymore.”

“Alien abduction is no joke,” says Dean.

“Seriously?” she says.

“Yellow car!” says Sam.

“God damn it,” Claire says.

 

* * *

 

“Clairewyn, please hand me the athelas.”

Claire turns to dig through the cupboard filled with mini mason jars of fake herbs until she finds the one labeled “ATHELAS” in a fancy script and then hands it to Elizabeth—sorry, _Petalstar_ —who beams at her and takes it to mix into some fake medicine. Claire is probably the youngest person in the camp at eighteen—she and Dean and Castiel had to fill out _waivers_ for her because alcohol or something—and Elizabeth had sort of taken it upon herself to force Claire under her wing. So when Claire isn’t secretly training under Dean as a page and knocking grown geeks on their asses in combat, she helps Petalstar out in her fake apothecary. It is usually only for an hour or two, and it’s honestly a welcome respite from the others, and Elizabeth is nice, if not a bit of a total geek.

Claire likes her.

Once Petalstar is done speaking to her customer, she wipes her (clean) hands on her apron and turns to Claire. “You may take your break now, Clairewyn, if you wish,” she says, and when Claire frowns because she’s only been here half an hour, she adds in a whisper, “Your dad’s heading this way.”

“Oh, thanks,” Claire says, not bothering to correct her, and when she looks over Petalstar’s shoulder, she sees Cas walking across the marketplace square, decked out in the leather armor Charlie dressed him in that morning. He’s got a black sash with the Moon Queen’s crest on it that identifies him as some sort of monk in Charlie’s army or something. Claire’s in some gender-neutral peasant clothes. She wanted to be a ninja, but they told her there were no ninjas in Moondoor, and the Moon Queen is too good-aligned for rogues. Whatever.

Claire ducks out through the back curtain and walks around the apothecary tent to casually approach Cas, who, naturally, notices her right away. She can never sneak up on Cas.

“Hey, Cas,” she says.

“Hello, Claire,” he replies. “Charlie asked that I inform you that today’s training is postponed due to some political visitation.”

“Isn’t delivering messages more of a handmaiden’s job?”

“Charlie did ask Dean,” he admits. “But he sent me to do it.” He frowns, and Claire is pretty sure it has nothing to do with the fact that, by the game’s rank system, Dean shouldn’t actually be giving Cas orders. Then again, Dean doesn’t hold much to the rank system; his official title may be handmaiden, but he acts more like a lieutenant than anything else.

“Well, what time is training then?” she asks. By “training,” they usually mean whacking each other with foam swords in preparation for the second day of the weekend when they usually have the big battle between all the armies of Moondoor. Thanks to Dean and Cas’s actual training back at the bunker, Claire is pretty good at it. Charlie says if she does well today she can promote Claire to an actual combatant rank, rather than just part-time apothecary peasant. “But I’ll have to ask your dads first,” Charlie had said with a wink.

“Her exact words were ‘when the sun falls to 50 degrees ere its setting,’ which at this latitude is equivalent to 3:24 p.m., but I believe she meant three o’clock.”

Claire gives him a blank look. “’Kay,” she says, to set an example for how a normal human being might answer a question more efficiently.

Cas, of course, doesn’t notice. “When you’ve finished here, would you like to accompany me to lunch?”

“You are too forward, Sir Knight.” He tilts his head in confusion. Cas is never very good at the roleplaying part of these weekends. He’s a terrible actor, and Claire would know; she’s seen it. “Yeah, sure,” she says. “You’re not gonna eat with Dean?”

Cas shifts his weight and tugs at his sash. “He is very busy today,” he says evasively.

Which is probably Dean’s way of avoiding Cas, and it seems like Cas knows it. Dean seemed fine otherwise last night and that morning at Charlie’s, where she had insisted they all stay so they could play Cards Against Humanity and eat waffles made in Charlie’s new Death Star waffle maker.

“It’s a hard knock life for a queen’s handmaiden,” says Claire, instead of what she probably should. It would just be weird to give Cas relationship advice. “Dunno why he’s still a handmaiden anyway.”

“He’s turned down every offer of a leadership role, for reasons I cannot fathom,” says Cas.

“They should offer them to me,” says Claire, even though she would probably turn it down, too. She isn’t _that_ invested in the game. Most of the players forgive her for not really playing a character because of the fact that she is pretty much dragged here by her dads and her uncle. Some of them get annoyed; she avoids those people. Elizabeth deals with it by giving Claire a game name—God knows she wouldn’t have ever called _herself_ Clairewyn—and gently roleplaying.

Still, she’d like to do something besides peasant work.

“You don’t have enough experience in the game for that yet,” says Cas, parroting back what Dean usually says.

“You’ve only played three more times than me,” she says. “Why do you get to rise in rank?”

“I defeated all the queen’s men in combat,” he says, and then thinks for a moment and smiles wryly. “Though I suppose sleeping with the queen’s favored handmaiden helps.”

“I call nepotism,” she says, and Cas chuckles. Actually, Charlie is a little stricter on them all, because it would be pretty shitty to the other players to let some casuals come in and get all the cool stuff. Not that they really care about the stuff; for the most part, they’re here to hit each other with foam swords and hang out with Charlie. “I didn’t realize you were together in-game, too.”

Cas shrugs and looks at something over her shoulder. “I believe I’m being summoned.”

She turns and sees one of Charlie’s knight guys watching them and beckoning Cas over with a lazy gesture—he’s probably of some higher rank and thinks he can boss Cas around. He wouldn’t look so disrespectful if he ever saw Castiel at his heavenly-wrathiest.

“Duty calls,” she says.

“You should return to work as well,” he says.

“Yeah, God forbid someone doesn’t get their fake medicine for their fake illness.”

Cas gives her a Look, but for someone who doesn’t take much to the roleplaying bit either, he doesn’t have a lot of room to give others disapproving looks.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” he says, and he starts toward the other knight. Claire watches him go, with his black sash and his boots leaving prints in the mud.

 _Don’t leave us hanging_.

“You’re supposed to say it back,” she calls after him, and Cas turns to look at her quizzically, frowning with his head tilted to the side, like an overgrown bird. “You’re supposed to say it back,” she repeats. He just stares at her, and she turns and hurries back into the apothecary tent.

And that’s all the relationship advice he’s going to get from her.

 

* * *

 

Charlie is pontificating to a crowd of people holding fake weapons when Claire arrives at the training grounds late. She got caught up texting Molly and Justin again in the tech tent, but she figures she can just claim ignorance of medieval math, being an uneducated peasant and all, so she didn’t know what time she should head over.

Dean is standing at Charlie’s right, a little behind her, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes are scanning the crowd; he looks more like a bodyguard than a handmaiden for sure. Maybe handmaiden is code for that now. There’s been a rumor going around camp that the orcs hired assassins, so Charlie probably _does_ need a bodyguard.

Claire stands to the side and moves behind some tall guy in a robe when Dean’s eyes start sweeping toward her side of the crowd. While Charlie goes on about orcs and honor and protecting their kingdom’s citizens, Claire looks around for Cas and Sam and finds them standing together with the rest of the crowd. Every once in a while, Sam’s head drops and he says something to Cas, who responds with an expression alternating between frustration and exasperation. So they’re probably talking about Dean.

When Charlie dismisses them all to practice, Claire waits until Dean is busy talking to Charlie, and then she darts forward to grab a foam sword from the bins and backs up to circle around the nearest tent. Charlie and her generals (and Sam, Cas, and Dean) are standing around a table with a map of the park on it. The figurines are missing, for secrecy’s sake, but they seem to be entirely preoccupied with a strategy meeting while the knights and everyone practice. Claire swings the fake sword around in her hand and steps out from behind the tent, her eyes on Dean’s back. Sam glances up and sees her, but he doesn’t react, aside from a small smirk when he looks back down at the map. As she gets closer, a few more people notice her, but they seem to realize what she’s doing, with her focus so intent on Dean, and they all know who they are to each other. A few of the nearer players take subtle side steps, which could give the game away, until Sam jumps in to ask Dean’s opinion on something, and Claire takes the opportunity to hurry forward until she can swing her sword up and tap Dean’s shoulder.

He stiffens, and his hand goes straight to the wooden sword he’s always got hanging on his belt that he’s not supposed to wave around because the plain wooden swords are only for show (or in case of real monsters; Sam and Dean had made sure they were made out of some special wood, for some reason). He probably has his Hunter Face on now, but at least they can all rest assured that he actually disarmed before coming into the park.

“What’s this?” says Claire loudly, a sense of giddy triumph bubbling up because _yes_ , she managed to sneak up on him. She’ll have to thank Alex for the tips later. “A handmaiden caught off his guard?”

Dean glares over his other shoulder at her, and Charlie laughs at his side. Claire grins and lifts the sword from his shoulder.

“Is that a challenge, or did you just kill me?” he growls, and oh shit, right, the game. They were in the middle of playing, and they really shouldn’t piss off the other players. Who are snickering, actually, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

She’ll probably regret it either way, but she knows the safer option. “A, uh, challenge,” she says, grasping for a cover story. “I… wanted to show off for the queen.”

“The queen has no use for assassins,” says one of the generals, but Charlie is beaming at Claire for some reason.

“The queen can speak for herself,” says Charlie regally. “I would see the young lady test her skills. We need all the warriors we can get in our battle against the orcs.” She turns to face Claire fully. “Fight with honor, Clairewyn, and I’ll consider admitting you to the academy.”

Claire smiles back at her. Well, this _is_ what she wanted. Sort of.

They get Dean a foam sword, and he still looks pissed, but after a few minutes of swinging it around and joking with Sam, he looks more relaxed. He’ll probably still kick her ass, but she’s also been doing real blade practice with Cas, who is better with swords and blades anyway.

“All right, three-point game,” says Dean, when they’ve found a spot in the clearing. He seems to be treating this like one of their private training sessions in the woods, only this time with witnesses, which includes Charlie, Sam, Cas, and a few of the generals. She’s sparred with a few of the “squires” before, so it’s not a big deal. She usually kicks their asses, too.

“Hope you’re not expecting me to go easy on you,” says Dean.

“You’re just mad I got the drop on you,” she says. “I’ve been training with Cas, you know.”

“I was distracted,” Dean snaps, and then he lifts his foam sword to point it at her. “Keep this up and you’re grounded.”

“What authority do you have to ground me, Sparky?” she asks, beginning to circle.

“Spartacus,” he growls, because he’s a _total dork_.

“Whatever.” Claire lunges forward to whack his arm, but he parries and smacks her shoulder with his sword, _hard_. “Hey! Ow!”

“Guard up,” he says, swinging to adjust his grip.

“Jerk,” she spits, and he just raises an eyebrow and beckons her forward with a finger.

This was a mistake. They circle each other for a while and trade blows, but Claire doesn’t even get a single hit in before Dean smacks her other arm and leg in quick succession, thus ending their duel. He’s obviously been giving her hits during their training sessions. Claire hates him.

“That’s three strikes,” declares a general. “The victory goes to the queen’s handmaiden.”

“God damn it,” Claire bites out, and she’s probably blushing, which only makes it worse.

Dean gestures at her with his fake sword again. “Don’t sneak up on me again,” he orders, and then he hands the sword to a nearby page and turns away from her, and she’s mad so she does something stupid: She reaches into her pocket and throws a bag of fake herbs at his back.

He whirls around to scowl at her and looks down at the red bag on the grass. That’s the second time she’s attacked his back today. She’s in for it now.

“What the hell is that?” he demands, pointing at the bag.

“Basil,” she snaps, because that’s what it _is_ , and she’s sick of this stupid game, and even in-game it’s not a spell bag so _whatever_. Why can’t they just _talk_ to each other like normal people?

“Claire,” says Charlie, sounding disappointed.

“Get over here,” Dean orders.

“Dean,” says Cas.

“No,” says Claire, and when Dean takes a step forward, she takes a step back, and after one last glance at his angry expression, she turns and bolts.

“Claire!” he shouts, and damn him, she doesn’t get very far before he’s got a hold on her. He’s practically a hundred years old, but his reflexes are off the charts and he’s got longer legs than her. He grabs her arm and yanks, twisting her around, but she loses her balance and falls. Dean goes down with her, and she has the presence of mind to avoid kneeing him in the balls, but she still throws her limbs out to push him away and tries to escape.

“Ow—Claire—”

“Let me go!” she shouts, scrabbling at the ground to pull herself away from him, but then she feels his fingers dig into her sides, and it takes her a moment of gasping to realize that he’s _tickling_ her. “No, no—” She turns to swat at his hands and curls up automatically, helplessly. “Dean,” she chokes out through her laughter, “stop—!”

“You gonna sneak up on me again?” he asks, grin evident in his voice.

“J-jerk!” She kicks out and her foot makes contact with something, and Dean grunts and falls back, releasing her. She quickly crawls away and turns to glare at him. He’s got a hand splayed on his chest where she must have kicked him, and he’s wincing. “You okay?”

He looks up at her. “You trying to kick-stop my heart, Novak?”

Claire scoffs. “You just tried to tickle me to death.”

“Sorry,” he says, which surprises her. “I panicked. Didn’t mean to tackle you.”

She huffs and then pauses. “Sorry I sort of almost killed you.”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s just a game,” he says.

“Dean. Claire.”

They both look up to see Cas standing a little to the side, looking bemused. The others are a few feet behind him, looking on apprehensively, which is a little embarrassing. They practically just had a foster-father-daughter fight in front of everyone.

“Is everything all right?” asks Cas.

“Sure,” says Claire. “Dean just physically assaulted me and thought he could make it better by tickle torturing me. So, you know, typical Dean.”

“Shut up,” says Dean. “Claire started it.”

Cas smiles. “Is that so?”

“Keep smirking, Cas. I’ll tickle torture you, too.”

That makes Cas outright laugh, and he steps over to Dean and offers his hand.

“Dean, I love you, but you’re a fucking dope,” says Cas.

Several different emotions pass over Dean’s face, from confusion to shock to embarrassment, before he manages to mask them, and then he just turns bright red.

“Just help me up, asshole,” Dean mutters, grasping Cas’s hand and using it to pull himself to his feet. Cas uses his momentum to pull him so he’s standing close, and for a moment he just looks at Dean fondly and smiles. Dean struggles with his embarrassment, a smirk tugging at his lips, and finally he just gives up and grins and leans across the sparse space between them to kiss Cas, one hand gripping his black sash.

They seem to have forgotten that they still have an audience, so Claire does her foster-daughterly duty and reminds them. “Eww, gross,” she says loudly, and when Dean flips her off, grinning into the kiss, she adds, for good measure, “God, I hate you guys.”

Which is a lie. Obviously.

 

* * *

 

Claire has to spend ten minutes in the stocks for attacking the queen’s handmaiden, but honestly, it’s worth it for the stupidly happy look on Dean’s face for the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> ~The End~
> 
> …Chronologically speaking. This is the second piece I wrote for the Guinea Pig ‘Verse, and I meant it to be the end piece, because it finishes what I set out to do with this series. I still have a few ideas for some things that happen in the year this series represents, but I haven’t written them yet, and this is the chronological end. Thought I might as well post it. :)
> 
> As I was writing this series, some ideas came up for what season 11 might look like with this as a background… but those ideas are sad, and I want this series to be happy. So I’m just going to leave it here.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Here’s to found families. <3


End file.
